Dit is ons nieuw hondje Kira, een kruising van een waterhond en een Podenko. Ze is sinds 7 februari 2024 bij ons en druk bezig ons hart te veroveren. Het is een lief, aanhankelijk hondje, dat zich op een week snel aan ons heeft aangepast. Ze is heel vinnig en nieuwsgierig, een heel ander hondje dan Noleke.
This is our new dog Kira, a cross between a water dog and a Podenko. She has been with us since February 7, 2024 and is busy winning our hearts. She is a sweet, affectionate dog who quickly adapted to us within a week. She is very quick and curious, a very different dog than Noleke.
DEAR VISITOR,
MY BLOG EXISTS NEARLY 13 YEARS AND 4 MONTH.
ON /30/09/2024 MORE THAN 2.230.520
VISITORS FROM 135 DIFFERENT NATIONS ALREADY FOUND THEIR WAY TO MY BLOG.
THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF 400GUESTS PER DAY.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG AND HOPE YOU ENJOY EACH TIME.
The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
The hunt for alien civilisations may need a rethink. A new paper argues that the signals we're listening for might not be the ones ET would choose.
Historically, SETI – the search for extraterrestrial intelligence – involves scanning the sky for radio signals that another civilization is deliberately sending. The simplest would be a constant blast in all directions, but in a narrow range of frequencies, similar to early radio broadcasts – like a constant hum that would tell a listener it is artificial. From light years away, we would not be able to get any other information – all we would be able to tell from Earth is that a signal was there and where it was coming from, not what it says.
But David Messerschmitt at the University of California, Berkeley points out that such a continuous signal would take a tremendous amount of energy. Assuming aliens have utility bills, he says, they would use a different strategy.
They would also probably want to say something more than "we are here" by adding information to the signal. All attempts to send messages to ET from Earth have contained information, sometimes a lot of it. One of the most famous, the Arecibo message sent in 1974, which encoded details about humans, DNA, the solar system and more.
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Calling ET, come in ET (Image: Louie Psihoyos/Corbis)
"All our discussions about transmitting ourselves include information, and how to encode it such that ET can understand our message and what to include in the message," Messerschmitt says.
To do this most efficiently, instead of a constant, narrow-band signal, Messerschmitt argues that ET would beep out short bursts in a wider range of frequencies – a broadband signal. This would take less energy to transmit, and could encode information.
Current SETI searches are not designed to pick up information in that kind of signal, notes Seth Shostak, director of the Center for SETI Research at the SETI Institute in California.
"The problem is that… encoding a message; means that any signal would vary quickly," Shostak says. "To see such variations – to get the information in the signal – requires having enough sensitivity to see changes in a 10th or 100th of a millionth of a second. That requires antennas with collecting areas maybe 10,000 times larger than necessary to detect a steady signal." No such antennas currently exist that would pick up the variations more than a few light years away.
But Messerschmitt thinks there's a workaround. Existing software, such as that used for the SETI@Home project, which processes millions of signals using idle home computers, could be adapted to extract information from a signal. SETI@Home looks at many channels at once seeking narrowband signals, but it could be programmed to look for broadband ones instead.
He doesn't think this means the current approach to SETI should be halted, but rather expanded to also look for this alternative form of signal.
"I would not advocate putting all our eggs in one basket," says Messerschmitt. "We really don't know what ET is up to."
The Canal Winchester, OH, witness first saw a bright group of multicolored lights about 8:05 p.m. on January 25, 2015. Pictured: Canal Winchester, OH. (Credit: Google)
An Ohio witness at Canal Winchester reported watching a 50-foot-tall, cylinder-shaped UFO nearly land in his back yard that was soon joined by a group of similar-shaped objects, according to testimony in Case 62937 from the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) witness reporting database.
The witness was leaving a relative’s home after a family celebration when the first object was seen about 8:05 p.m. on January 25, 2015.
“I walked out the front door of the house and saw a bright, multicolored group of lights speeding toward me,” the witness stated. “I thought it must be an aircraft in trouble. I started screaming as the craft came into view seemingly instantly.”
The object hovered at the ground level and was described as a thin jar, but was easily 50 feet tall. Pictured: Canal Winchester, OH. (Credit: Google)
The witness described the object.
“It was shaped like a thin jar, but was easily 50 feet tall. It hovered very closely to the ground and the grass seemed to be pulled toward it instead of being pushed away. The grass wasn’t wavering though.”
The object then emitted a sound that affected the witness.
“All of a sudden a dull hum hit me and I couldn’t breathe. Then at least 40 or so similar-looking, smaller craft burst into the scene where they seemed to be very oddly chasing the larger craft.”
The witness then observed the smaller crafts moving inside the larger craft.
“The larger craft sucked the smaller crafts inside and then zipped off with a loud zoom or whoosh. It kind of sounded like a really loud dog bark.”
The witness stated that about 40 similar-looking, but smaller craft, also appeared and were sucked inside the larger craft. Pictured: Canal Winchester, OH. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
No images or videos were included with the MUFON report, which was filed on January 28, 2015. Ohio MUFON Field Investigator Rob Mercer is investigating.
Canal Winchester is a city in Fairfield and Franklin counties, population 7,101.
Please remember that most UFO sightings can be explained as something natural or man-made. The above quotes were edited for clarity. Please report UFO activity to MUFON.com.
After reading Linda Molton Howes’ article ‘U.S. Navy flight engineer saw silver discs and entrance to alleged E.t. and Human collaboration in Antartica’ (EBE’s ‘Extraterrestrial Biological Entities’ working together with and interacting with Scientists at/around the Beardmore Glacier at the South Pole) I started to check this area at the South Pole on Google Earth.
Surprisingly, if it is not a software bug, Google Earth has blurred out the whole area around the Beardmore Glacier.
Despite the whole area is blurred out, I managed to check a small area.
I found several strange objects in this particular area. I’m not saying all objects are real and we need more proof, but no doubt, strange things are happening there at the Beardmore Glacier.
Some Earthlike Alien Planets May Begin as 'Mini-Neptunes'
Some Earthlike Alien Planets May Begin as 'Mini-Neptunes'
by Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer
This artist's illustration depicts the transformation of a "mini-Neptune" exoplanet, orbiting a red dwarf star, into a potentially habitable rocky world. CREDIT: Rodrigo Luger (adapted from NASA images)
Some Earthlike alien worlds may have looked a lot more like miniature versions of Neptune when they were born.
Frigid "mini-Neptune" exoplanets that take shape relatively far from red dwarfs — stars smaller and dimmer than the sun — could be dragged inward over time, eventually losing most of their thick gaseous atmospheres and ending up in spots warm enough for life as we know it to survive, a new study suggests.
Such stripped, rocky "habitable evaporative cores" (HECs) may be common around red dwarfs, which make up about 75 percent of all stars in the Milky Way galaxy, researchers said. [10 Exoplanets That Could Host Alien Life]
"Future research will have to address just how likely it is for HECs to actually be habitable," lead study author Rodrigo Luger, a Ph.D. student at the University of Washington in Seattle, wrote in a blog post. "Either way, these evaporated cores are probably lurking out there in the habitable zones of these stars, and many may be discovered in the coming years."
Red dwarfs are cooler than the sun, and they therefore burn through their fuel supply more slowly. In fact, scientists think these stars can keep on shining for trillions of years. (For comparison, the sun's lifespan is about 10 billion years.)
Red dwarfs, also known as M dwarfs, are very luminous and active in their youths, however. For hundreds of millions of years after they form, these stars blast out lots of high-energy X-rays and extreme ultraviolet (UV) radiation, which can erode or completely strip away the atmospheres of relatively nearby planets, Luger said.
Scientists have discovered a large number of mini-Neptunes — gaseous worlds more massive than Earth but smaller than "ice giants" such as Uranus or Neptune — orbiting distant stars. Mini-Neptunes consist of a rocky core surrounded by a thick hydrogen-helium atmosphere. Scientists think these planets form far from their host stars, where water and other volatile molecules exist as ice in the planet-forming disc.
So, mini-Neptunes around young red dwarfs would initially lie too far away to be reshaped by the stars' intense radiation. But computer modeling work performed by Luger and his team suggests that these planets could come closer to their stars over time.
This would happen because of tidal forces dragging the planets inward. These tidal effects arise from the fact that a star's gravitational pull is stronger on an orbiting planet's near (star-facing) side than the tug on the far side. Tidal forces can generate enormous amounts of internal energy, as the insides of a planet are stretched this way and that. And such forces can even cause planets to move, Luger said.
"The energy dissipated by the tides inside the planet has to come from somewhere. It turns out that it often comes from the orbit of the planet, which shrinks, bringing the planet closer to the star," Luger wrote in the blog post.
Some mini-Neptunes may thus migrate into the "habitable zone" (HZ) of their host stars — that just-right range of distances where liquid water could exist on a world's surface. There, the exoplanets would experience higher levels of X-ray and UV radiation, which could potentially strip away their thick atmospheres, leaving behind a rocky, Earthlike world.
"Such a planet is likely to have abundant surface water, since its core is rich in water-ice — once in the habitable zone, this ice can melt and form oceans," Luger wrote.
These HECs would be well-placed to possibly support life when the red dwarf calmed down after its initial high-activity phase.
"Many of the Earth-mass terrestrial planets detected in the HZs of M dwarfs in the coming years could be HECs," the authors write in the study, which was published this month in the journal Astrobiology. "These planets should have abundant surface water and are likely to be water worlds, whose potential for habitability should be investigated further."
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UFO mania: AMAZING - Electrical Device Found At Gunung Padang.
UFO mania: AMAZING - Electrical Device Found At Gunung Padang
A famous geologist has hit the headlines with an amazing discovery. We are talking about Dr. Danny Hilman Natawidjaja, a somewhat controversial researcher that is working on the megalithic suite of Gunung Padang in Indonesia. Dr. Danny Hilman is responsible for the archaeological team conducting research on the site and they have recently announced a discovery of a oddly shaped metal device that is presumed to be the worlds oldest electrical device. According to researchers, this object is made out of gold and copper and seems to resemble a primitive electrical capacitator. According to some researchers, this newly found device seems very similar in structure to the biblical descriptions of the “The Ark of the Covenant “. Carbon dating confirms the device to be 2500 older than The Ark of the Covenant. Dr. Danny Hilman Natawidjaja also proposed that Gunung Padang region is a perfect match for Plato’s Atlantis. The discovery of the electrical device at Gunung Padang is getting a lot of attention, even President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia visited the site congratulating the researchers on their discovery and declaring that he has great interest for the results of the research. According to archaeologists, the subsurface layers at Gunung Padang might be more than 12,000 years old and the news of an electrical device being discovered points towards the possibility that ancient man had already mastered electricity thousands of years ago. “The findings on the Gunung Padang site will shock the world,” said the president’s special staffer for social aid and natural disasters, Andi Arief
A device which is similar to a hydroelectric power plant reactors in layer 25.000 BC
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UFO over Loch Lomond area, Scotland - Feb 1, 2015
UFO over Loch Lomond area, Scotland - Feb 1, 2015
Witness report: Don't be put off by this film just showing a light moving across the sky. Try to watch all the way through and you will definitely be discounting planes, lanterns, stars, Moon, etc and like me will be questioning what this large, very bright object could have been...
Filmed 5.25pm on 1st Feb 2015 from Kinlochard, Scotland, looking South South West. Very bright large white (reddish) light moves across sky above hills.
Filmed for over fifteen minutes this was definitely not a Chinese lantern (too large, too bright and too long in the sky), aircraft (No flight path and too low and slow) or helicopter (would have seen usual flashing green/red lights and heard something but object was silent plus the way it moved tells me not this type of aircraft).
It moved slowly and silently. It went behind forest trees on top of the high hills which are approx one mile away and still appeared to be quite a bit further than this but even though it was some distance the size from where I was filming still appeared to be large and very bright.
Judging distance and approximate location I would say that it was going over or flying close to Loch Lomond (Here is a rough idea where it may have been flying over: Grid ref – NS 39750-97783, Latitude:56.145741 Longitude: -4.5809916).
Although it flew over a remote area of the Trossachs National Park others must have seen it and probably with a better view. Would be good to know what this was and if anybody else got to see it.
So to re-cap, the object was large, was emitting a very bright white light with some red light also seen and looked at times to be pulsating. It moved silently and slowly and although I had filmed it for about fifteen minutes it would have been in the sky for longer but I had only noticed it as I was closing the curtains which is when I began to film. There is some blurring and camera shake on the film as I set the camera to manual focus and also to keep continuity of recording I carry on filming as I go upstairs to get a better view of the object.
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Nieuwe beelden opgedoken 'die bewijzen dat er aliens waren in Area 51'
Nieuwe beelden opgedoken ‘die bewijzen dat er aliens waren in Area 51′
Er zijn beelden opgedoken uit de jaren veertig waarin te zien is hoe Amerikaanse soldaten zich ontfermen over het lichaam van een alien. Dat meldt een Australisch tijdschrift dat de video naar eigen zeggen frame voor frame heeft bestudeerd, zo weet de Britse krant Metro.
Volgens complotsites is dit hét bewijs dat er aliens zijn geborgen tijdens het Roswellincident in 1947. Het Australische magazine ‘UNCENSORED’ claimt dat het beeldmateriaal authentiek is.
De beelden doen sterk denken aan de Hollywoodfilm ‘Ant and Dec’s Alien Autopsy’ uit 2006. Philip Mantle, de UFO-expert die betrokken was bij de eerste film over Roswell, deed de beweringen van het tijdschrift af als ‘volstrekte onzin’.
UFO-website Panoramics stelt: “De techneuten van het tijdschrift hebben de beelden eerst geanalyseerd voordat ze ermee naar de pers zijn gestapt. Ze hebben vastgesteld dat het beeldmateriaal authentiek is. In de video is niet alleen de dode alien te zien, maar ook de hangar waar het lichaam naartoe is gebracht met de militaire ambulance. Er zijn genoeg aanwijzingen dat de beelden dateren uit de jaren veertig.”
Anderen reageerden in eerste instantie sceptisch. “Waar komt deze video vandaan en wie heeft de beelden gemaakt?” vraagt schrijver Nigel Watson zich af. “Het tijdschrift zegt het filmpje te hebben gevonden, maar gaat niet in op de details. We moeten niet vergeten dat de beruchte films over autopsieën op aliens uit de jaren tachtig nep bleken te zijn of waren gebaseerd op beeldmateriaal dat was zoekgeraakt.”
Eind vorig jaar claimde Tom Carey, een onderzoeker naar UFO’s en buitenaardse wezens, een authentieke foto te hebben van een alien waar autopsie op wordt uitgevoerd in het geheime gebied van Area 51. Volgens de Daily Mirror was bevestigd dat de foto dateert uit 1947, het jaar waarin de beroemde Roswellcrash plaatsvond in New Mexico.
De Roswellcrash is het beroemdste UFO-incident ooit. Op 8 juli 1947 zou een vliegende schotel zijn neergestort en zouden er meerdere buitenaardse lijken geborgen zijn. Ondanks dat eerst bekend werd gemaakt dat het om een buitenaards object zou gaan, werd dit bericht later afgezwakt tot het verhaal dat er een weerballon neergestort zou zijn.
Hierna werd het 30 jaar lang stil, tot enkele officieren van het Amerikaanse leger alsnog beweerden dat er sprake was van een buitenaards object dat ter aarde was gestort. Carey liet de beelden onderzoeken door een historicus van filmgigant Kodak.
Eigenlijk alle beelden die wij te zien krijgen van het oppervlak van Mars zijn in meer of mindere mate door NASA bewerkt.
Wanneer onafhankelijke foto-experts met deze beelden aan de slag gaan dan komen er interessante dingen tevoorschijn.
Dat we toch af en toe spannende dingen ontdekken op afbeeldingen van NASA komt omdat ze daar af en toe een beetje lopen te slapen of koffiepauze hebben wanneer er een interessant beeld voorbij komt.
Bewijs genoeg om tot de conclusie te komen dat het wemelt van leven op Mars. Bovendien, als dit niet zo was waarom dan al die moeite om dingen te verbergen?
Want, dat doen ze.
In 2012 schreven wij een artikel over hoe iedereen denkt dat het landschap van Mars rood gekleurd is, maar wat niet waar is:
De kern van het verhaal is dat er al meer dan honderdduizend jaar buitenaardsen op Mars zijn. Dat er wel degelijk een menselijke basis is op Mars. Dat de planeet helemaal niet rood is zoals men ons wil doen geloven, maar heel veel lijkt op het landschap zoals in Arizona, Amerika.
Waar het allemaal om draait is de geheime buitenaardse technologie en de nulpuntenergie die al meer dan 40 jaar beschikbaar is. Uiteindelijk komt het dan weer neer op rijkdom en macht. Een geheime coup op aarde.
Redactie: Inmiddels kunnen we daaraan toevoegen dat het dragen van een ruimtepak naar verluidt niet nodig is op Mars, al wordt die informatie sterk onderdrukt. Er is zuurstof in de lucht al is die aan het oppervlak ijler dan bij ons. Vergelijkbaar met als je je hier op aarde op zo'n 2000 meter hoogte bevindt. Even wennen dus, maar prima leefbaar al je bloed zich heeft aangepast aan die conditie.
Hier zie je een foto zoals die wordt gepubliceerd door NASA en welke gemaakt is door de Curiosity Rover aan het Mars oppervlak. Je ziet de ons bekende kleur van het Mars-landschap en ergens daar op de voorgrond ligt een soort ondefiniëerbaar object.
Volgens foto-experts echter, zijn dit soort foto’s van NASA bewerkt met wat ze noemen “roest pixels”. Deze worden met een photoshop programma aangebracht en zijn ook weer heel gemakkelijk te verwijderen. Wanneer je dat doet met bijvoorbeeld de bovenstaande foto dan zie je het volgende:
Als je dan het object wat dichterbij haalt, zie je het grote verschil met de NASA foto.
In plaats van een ondefiniëerbaar object zien we iets dat lijkt op een metalen schijf of misschien zelfs wel een gecrasht ruimteschip.
Hoe de roest pixels in de praktijk worden verwijderd van de bewerkte foto’s kun je zien in onderstaande video.
Canadian YouTube User Records Several UFOs Over Toronto, Ontario
Canadian YouTube User Records Several UFOs Over Toronto, Ontario
Toronto resident Jennifer OBrien recorded four different videos of mysterious objects hovering over her area on January 26, 2015. She uploaded her videos five days later, on 31 January, 2015 to YouTube. Some of the objects in these videos appear to be hovering for hours before moving slightly while others pulsate and change in colors erratically.
In her first recording, it shows an orb that changes color from orange to red and vice versa. Also, the strange ball changes in locations for approximately over an hour. The uploader also reveals that she also shot another glowing object on video over Lake Ontario at the same time. Jennifer encourages everyone who viewed her video to share their thoughts.
In the first part of the video, Jennifer looks getting out of her car to record the stationary light in the sky. The object appears close enough from the witness and doesn’t seem to be a star or a plane.
Jennifer’s second video shows orange/red orb descended slowly and records rapid changes of colors of a bright flashing blue object above Lake Ontario.
The second video now shows the previous object moving slightly, and a new object appears to the south – a pulsating light that occasionally changes in colors. Jennifer appears to place her camera down on her car and focus it on the object. The object remains motionless, but already in a different place in the next video.
On the third recording, the pulsating UFO has increased its altitude slightly and remained motionless above Lake Ontario.
On the fourth video, the bright object from the first recording now decreased its height significantly, while the pulsating UFO now higher to the South East.
Amazing UFO sighting filmed over Vero Beach, Florida 27-Jan-2015
Amazing UFO sighting filmed over Vero Beach, Florida 27-Jan-2015
Here’s this interesting UFO video that was recorded from Vero Beach, a city in Indian River County, Florida. This was filmed on Tuesday, 27th January 2015.
Check out this amazing piece of footage here:
And here are some interesting comments from Youtube:
What do you think about this sighting? Please leave your comments below!
How would the world change if we found extraterrestrial life?
How would the world change if we found extraterrestrial life?
January 31, 2015 - In 1938, Orson Welles narrated a radio broadcast of "War of the Worlds" as a series of simulated radio bulletins of what was happening in real time as Martians arrived on our home planet. The broadcast is widely remembered for creating public panic, although to what extent is hotly debated today.
Still, the incident serves as an illustration of what could happen when the first life beyond Earth is discovered. While scientists might be excited by the prospect, introducing the public, politicians and interest groups to the idea could take some time.
How extraterrestrial life would change our world view is a research interest of Steven Dick, who just completed a term as the Baruch S. Blumberg NASA/Library of Congress Chair of Astrobiology. The chair is jointly sponsored by the NASA Astrobiology Program and the John W. Kluge Center, at the Library of Congress.
Dick is a former astronomer and historian at the United States Naval Observatory, a past chief historian for NASA, and has published several books concerning the discovery of life beyond Earth. To Dick, even the discovery of microbes would be a profound shift for science.
"If we found microbes, it would have an effect on science, especially biology, by universalizing biology," he said. "We only have one case of biology on Earth. It's all related. It's all DNA-based. If we found an independent example on Mars or Europa, we have a chance of forming a universal biology."
Dick points out that even the possibilities of extraterrestrial fossils could change our viewpoints, such as the ongoing discussion of ALH84001, a Martian meteorite found in Antarctica that erupted into public consciousness in 1996 after a Science article said structures inside of it could be linked to biological activity. The conclusion, which is still debated today, led to congressional hearings.
"I've done a book about discovery in astronomy, and it's an extended process," Dick pointed out. "It's not like you point your telescope and say, 'Oh, I made a discovery.' It's always an extended process: You have to detect something, you have to interpret it, and it takes a long time to understand it. As for extraterrestrial life, the Mars rock showed it could take an extended period of years to understand it."
In his year at the Library of Congress, Dick spent time searching for historical examples (as well as historical analogies) of how humanity might deal with first contact with an extraterrestrial civilization. History shows that contact with new cultures can go in vastly different directions.
Hernan Cortes' treatment of the Aztecs is often cited as an example of how wrong first contact can go. But there were other efforts that were a little more mutually beneficial, although the outcomes were never perfect. Fur traders in Canada in the 1800s worked closely with Native Americans, for example, and the Chinese treasure fleet of the 15th Century successfully brought its home culture far beyond its borders, perhaps even to East Africa.
Even when both sides were trying hard to make communication work, there were barriers, noted Dick.
"The Jesuits had contact with Native Americans," he pointed out. "Certain concepts were difficult, like when they tried to get across the ideas of the soul and immortality."
Indirect contact by way of radio communications through the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), also illustrates the challenges of transmitting information across cultures. There is historical precedence for this, such as when Greek knowledge passed west through Arab in the 12th Century. This shows that it is possible for ideas to be revived, even from dead cultures, he said.
It's also quite possible that the language we receive across these indirect communications would be foreign to us. Even though mathematics is often cited as a universal language, Dick said there are actually two schools of thought. One theory is that there is, indeed, one kind of mathematics that is based on a Platonic idea, and the other theory is that mathematics is a construction of the culture that you are in.
"There will be a decipherment process. It might be more like the Mayan decipherments," Dick said.
As Dick came to a greater understanding about the potential cultural impact of extraterrestrial intelligence, he invited other scholars to present their findings along with him. Dick chaired a two-day NASA/Library of Congress Astrobiology Symposium called "Preparing for Discovery," which was intended to address the impact of finding any kind of life beyond Earth, whether microbial or some kind of intelligent, multicellular life form.
The symposium participants discussed how to move beyond human-centered views of defining life, how to understand the philosophical and theological problems a discovery would bring, and how to help the public understand the implications of a discovery.
"There is also the question of what I call astro-ethics," Dick said. "How do you treat alien life? How do you treat it differently, ranging from microbes to intelligence? So we had a philosopher at our symposium talking about the moral status of non-human organisms, talking in relation to animals on Earth and what their status is in relation to us."
Dick plans to collect the lectures in a book for publication next year, but he also spent his time at the library gathering materials for a second book about how discovering life beyond Earth will revolutionize our thinking.
"It's very farsighted for NASA to fund a position like this," Dick added. "They have all their programs in astrobiology, they fund the scientists, but here they fund somebody to think about what the implications might be. It's a good idea to do this, to foresee what might happen before it occurs."
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UFO mania: NASA Finds UFO and Mysterious Bright Spot on Dwarf Planet Ceres
UFO mania: NASA Finds UFO and Mysterious Bright Spot on Dwarf Planet Ceres
NASA scientists have been stymied by the discovery of a large, bright white spot on the dwarf planet Ceres, which has been revealed in images from the Dawn spacecraft, set to soon arrive at the unusual celestial object.
The white spot appeared in a series of photographs of Ceres taken on January 13, according to Space.com. Though the images were released on January 19, just what has caused the anomaly on the dwarf planet, which is located between Mars and Jupiter in the asteroid belt, remains undetermined, according to mission director and chief engineer Marc Rayman.
“Yes, we can confirm that it is something on Ceres that reflects more sunlight, but what that is remains a mystery,” he said.
Also Watch:
PLANET CERES - NASA's Dawn Spacecraft new UFO footage
NASA's Dawn Spacecraft new UFO footage NASA’s Dawn spacecraft is approaching the dwarf planet Ceres, and will soon begin searching for signs of life. Launched in 2007, the probe has journeyed hundreds of millions of miles to the object and already has begun sending back digital images.
03-02-2015 om 01:06
geschreven door peter
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Galactic CAT scan reveals bubbly interior of supernova Cassiopeia A
Galactic CAT scan reveals bubbly interior of supernova Cassiopeia A
February 1, 2015 - Astronomers have produced a 3D map of the interior of Cassiopeia A, a supernova in our galaxy, using the astronomical equivalent of a CAT scan.
The Cassiopeia A, or Cas A, exploded around 340 years ago and its relatively close proximity to the Earth makes it one of the most well-studied supernovas in our galaxy. Many astronomers still observe the supernova with great interest.
A new study conducted by researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and Dartmouth College unravels the bubbly interior of the supernova. The findings may shed more light on the way a supernova dies.
"Our three-dimensional map is a rare look at the insides of an exploded star," said Dan Milisavljevic of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
Astronomers explain that when a star explodes, it spews out extremely radioactive and hot matter outward from the core of the star. It is complex to model such process even with some of the most powerful computers on Earth.
However, by cautiously studying the remnants of fairly young supernovae such as Cas A, astronomers can examine several key processes that drive such stellar explosions.
The scientists suggest that the latest research involved examining the debris to understand what blew and how it blew. They claim that this latest study is a step forward in understanding how stars explode.
To generate the 3D map, the research team observed Cas A in near-infrared wavelengths of light using the Mayall 4-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory, southwest of Tucson, Ariz. The team also examined very faint materials found in the interior of Cas A, which provided significant information.
The study found that large cavities in the interior of Cas A look as if they were connected to large debris in the outer part of Cas A. The scientists posit that two cavities were very well-defined and had a diameter of three and six light-years. The researchers say that the entire structure resembled that of a Swiss cheese.
The authors of the study explain that the bubbly cavities of the supernova were possibly produced by clouds of radioactive nickel that was generated through the star explosion. As the nickel decays and forms iron, the bubbly interior of Cas A becomes rich in iron, scientists believe.
Further examination of the supernova via next-gen telescopes is needed to understand the origination of the bubbly interior of Cas A, suggest the researchers.
Le X-37B qui avait été mis en orbite depuis Cape Canaveral, le 11 décembre 2012, s’est reposé, par ses propres moyens, le 22 octobre 2014, sur la piste de la base aérienne Vandenberg de l’US Air Force. Il est ainsi resté 674 jours, soit presque deux années, en orbite autour de la Terre. C’était sa troisième mission. La première a eu lieu d’avril à décembre 2010 (224 jours) et la deuxième, de mars 2011 à juin 2012 (468 jours). A lui seul et en seulement trois missions, cet intrigant engin spatial réutilisable totalise plus de jours dans l’espace que les navettes spatiales, Discovery, Challenger et Columbia, en 135 missions…
Le X-37B se pose comme un avion après près de deux années en orbite au tour de la Terre
Le X-37B a une masse de 5 tonnes environ. Il se présente sous la forme d’un véhicule ailé automatique de type « Lifting Body » mis sur orbite par un lanceur classique et récupérable comme un avion, sur une piste conventionnelle. L’US Air Force explique qu’en orbite, l’appareil déploie des panneaux solaires et navigue pendant des mois dans l’espace avant de venir se reposer sur Terre, comme un avion, tout simplement. Officiellement, les militaires américains affirment que ce véhicule muni d’une soute, est destiné à tester de nouvelles techniques spatiales, des charges utiles, des matériaux et la rentrée dans l’atmosphère.
Le X-37B a déjà effectué trois missions autour de la Terre depuis 2010
Ces explications ne peuvent que laisser songeur les observateurs dans la mesure où ces techniques ont été largement mises au point lors de plusieurs programmes de recherche dont le point culminant fut la mise en service puis l’exploitation des navettes spatiales habitées au cours de 135 missions. Les Etats-Unis souhaitent aussi conserver un savoir-faire spatial que le retrait des « space shuttles » a mis en péril.
En fait, le potentiel du X-37B est plus qu’un trait d’union entre deux programmes. Il pourrait se révéler être tout simplement un engin spatial espion. En effet, depuis le retrait du service de ses avions largement supersoniques SR71 Blackbird, l’Oncle Sam se fie à ses U2 vieillissants, ses drones HALE pas encore tout à fait au point et à une flotte hors de prix de satellites en tous genres. Or, les drones peuvent être détectés et abattus, les avions espions aussi, et les satellites ont une trajectoire prévisible donc ils peuvent être leurrés par des techniques de camouflage, de déception ou de brouillage.
Dans ce contexte, le X-37B qui peut être lancé à volonté sur des orbites variées offre la souplesse d’emploi d’un avion capable d’évoluer hors de portée des missiles sol-air des pays survolés. Il possède les performances d’observation d’un satellite. Mieux, cet engin réutilisable est reconfigurable en fonction des besoins ; en cas de panne de la charge utile (observation radar, optique ou écoute électronique) il suffit de récupérer l’engin, de procéder aux réparations et de le remettre en orbite basse ou moyenne. Engin espion peut-être, mais l’une des applications les plus vraisemblables du X-37B serait la lutte anti-satellites.
En effet, toutes les nations modernes possèdent des armées équipées, avec des effecteurs redoutables, tels que des chars, des drones, des forces spéciales, des navires des avions, des hélicoptères… (la liste est loin d’être exhaustive). L’efficacité de ces moyens est basée sur la supériorité de l’information. En clair, le vainqueur d’un combat moderne est celui qui dispose de la vision la plus claire de la situation militaire et qui est capable de coordonner ses unités le plus rapidement et le plus judicieusement. Les militaires parlent de la chaine C4ISR (Computerized Command Control Communication Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance).
Cette chaine, qui constitue les yeux et les oreilles de toute nation moderne, est le garant de la réussite des opérations militaires. Elle repose sur un ensemble de moyens de communications dont la plupart est située dans l’espace, ce sont les fameux satellites d’observation et de relais radio. Détruisez les satellites qu’utilise votre adversaire, et vous aurez les clés de la victoire sur un ennemi désormais sourd, aveugle, incapable de coordonner ses actions.
Dès lors, le X-37B, un engin spatial militaire automatisé à longue endurance, capable de mettre en œuvre des charges utiles de brouillage, des armes électromagnétiques ou laser dans l’espace prend tout son sens. La guerre de l’espace a commencé.
'Earthquake Lights' are the new 'Swamp Gas' to explain some UFOs
'Earthquake Lights' are the new 'Swamp Gas' to explain some UFOs
February 2,2015 - Rare flashes of light that are sometimes seen around earthquakes are not caused by birds, or planes, or .... UFOs — all of which had been previously used to explain the phenomena known as 'earthquake lights' (according to an National Geographic article).
The article continues:
Instead, the lights are caused by electrical properties of certain rocks in specific settings, report scientists in a new paper.
Sometimes called earthquake lightning, the lights can take "many different shapes, forms, and colors," says study coauthor Friedemann Freund, an adjunct professor of physics at San Jose State University and a senior researcher at NASA's Ames Research Center.
Freund says common forms of earthquake lights include bluish flames that appear to come out of the ground at ankle height; orbs of light called ball lightning that float in the air for tens of seconds or even minutes; and quick flashes of bright light that resemble regular lightning strikes, except they come out of the ground instead of the sky and can stretch up to 650 feet (200 meters).
Over the centuries, there have been many reports of earthquake lights, both before and while the ground is shaking.
Just seconds before the 2009 L'Aquila, Italy, earthquake, people saw four-inch (ten-centimeter) flames of light flickering above a stone street.
On November 12, 1988, people reported a bright purple-pink globe of light along the St. Lawrence River in Quebec, 11 days before a powerful quake.
People also reported seeing a faint rainbow of light before the great 1906 quake in San Francisco and lights before the devastating 1811-12 New Madrid earthquakes in Missouri.
Freund and colleagues studied such historic accounts going all the way back to the year 1600 and published their findings in Seismological Research Letters.
"In the past, people often interpreted [earthquake lights] in religious terms, and in modern times they thought of UFOs, although there is a completely rational physical explanation that we are working on," Freud says.
Jim Conacher thought he was seeing UFOs when he spied seven yellow, luminous globes floating on a mountain on Tagish Lake in Canada's Yukon territory in the early 1970s.
A retired Canadian government agriculture inspector, Conacher took a photo of the lights, which circulated widely as purported evidence of a UFO encounter.
Freund and colleagues noticed that the timing of Conacher's photo seemed to place it just a few hours before the nearby Cross Sound earthquake of July 1, 1973, which measured 6.7 on the Richter scale.
For many years, sightings of earthquake lights were dismissed by the serious geology community.
But in the mid-1960s, during a series of earthquakes in Nagano, Japan, scientists made photos of earthquake lights that were clearly tied to the geologic activity. Since then, an increasing number of the phenomena have been captured on film and video, Freund said, in part because of the rise of surveillance cameras.
For example, cameras caught clear images of earthquake lights in Pisco, Peru, in August 2007, during a magnitude 8 earthquake there.
Over the past few years, various theories have been proposed for how earthquake lights form, including the disruption of the Earth's magnetic field by tectonic stress and the so-called piezoelectric effect, in which quartz-bearing rocks produce voltages when compressed in a certain way.
But Freund and colleagues now report that what causes earthquake lights appears to be an entirely different electrical process.
"When nature stresses certain rocks, electric charges are activated, as if you switched on a battery in the Earth's crust," he says.
The types of rocks that are particularly given to the phenomenon are basalts and gabbros, which have tiny defects in their crystals. When a seismic wave hits, electrical charges in the rocks may be released.
In some areas, basalts and gabbros are present in vertical structures called dikes, which formed as magma cooled along vertical faults and may reach as deep as 60 miles (97 kilometers) underground. These dikes may funnel electrical charges along, the scientists wrote.
"The charges can combine and form a kind of plasma-like state, which can travel at very high velocities and burst out at the surface to make electric discharges in the air," Freund added. Those discharges are what make the colorful light shows.
The right conditions for lights exist in less than 0.5 percent of earthquakes worldwide, the scientists estimate, which explains why the phenomena are relatively rare.
Earthquake lights seem to be most common in Italy, Greece, France, Germany, China, and parts of South America, though they have been observed in Japan, North America, and elsewhere.
The lights can occur weeks before major earthquakes, Freund noted, or during actual shaking. They have been recorded at distances of up to 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the epicenter.
Freund is working with other scientists on a global earthquake forecasting system and says scientists have started including earthquake lights as an indicator that a tremblor might be coming. (He avoids the term "prediction" because "it implies too much precision.")
"If we see two, three, or four characteristic phenomena, then it looks like there might be an earthquake," he said. He admitted that earthquake lights tend to be rare, but added, "If they are observed, let's watch out."
But others say that the lights will be of limited use for such forecasts.
"Earthquake lights are unlikely to be very helpful with earthquake prediction because they don't seem to be reported all that often," says Bruce Presgrave, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey's National Earthquake Information Center.
Earthquake lights have already been used to help predict quakes. Just before Italy's L'Aquila earthquake in 2009, a man in his kitchen saw bright flashes of light. Because he had reportedly read about earthquake lights before, he moved his family to a safer place.
In China in 1976, a geologist took shelter after seeing lights, which were followed by the deadly Tangshan quake.
Still, Freund says the lights are a small part of his broader work involving the electrical conductivity of rocks.
"I wasn't interested in earthquakes in the beginning, but then I realized that electrical phenomena are being activated by stress in the rocks," he says. "Earthquake lights are the tip of the iceberg, the most extreme expression of these phenomena, but underneath there are lots of other aspects, and we are considering measuring these in the context of forecasting."
As a next step, Freund hopes to reproduce earthquake lights in a laboratory. He also wants to better understand what causes the outburst of energy that leads to visible light.
I'm writing this to address the issues I have with Freud's comments. Specifically, the manner in which Freud speaks about UFOs, "In the past, people often interpreted [earthquake lights] in religious terms, and in modern times they thought of UFOs, although there is a completely rational physical explanation that we are working on", as though the term is only for syfy fan-boys and fringe groups.
The term UFO (Unidentified Flying Object) was created in 1953 by Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, of the USAF (the United States Air Force). Of course, later this term was hijacked by fringe groups and treated by the mainstream media and scientific community as a funny term for 'little green men'. Fringe groups are also enveloping other scientific terms into their repertoire of reformed definitions, such as Quantum. They have even created their own definition of quantum physics, but that isn't rece }iving ridicule.
The official definition of an Unidentified Flying Object is: Any apparent anomaly in the sky that is not identifiable as a known object or phenomenon. Such anomalies may later be identified, but depending on the evidence or lack of evidence, such an identification may not be possible generally leaving the anomaly unexplained.
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MI5 spent years investigating crop circles
MI5 spent years investigating crop circles
MI5 believed that Nazi sympathizers were creating the circles. Image Credit: sxc.hu
The mysterious patterns were once believed to be secret codes designed to guide German bombers.
These days crop circles are generally regarded to be a harmless enigma, but during World War II British intelligence officials perceived them to be a serious threat to the country's security.
New files uncovered at the National Archives detail how British spies had suspected Nazi sympathizers of using these crop formations to send signals to German aircraft. One of the formations investigated for example was designed in a 'G' shape with the tail pointing towards a nearby munitions factory.
Reconnaissance planes photographed dozens of these markings all across the country after intelligence officials learned of similar techniques being used to guide aircraft in mainland Europe. Efforts were also made to investigate sightings of unexplained lights in the sky.
"In 1940, everyone in Britain thought "we're next", and that Germany would have recruited spies in England as well who would be sending messages to the Germans and marking places out where landings could be made," said Dr David Clarke of Sheffield Hallam University.
Many of the formations however turned out to have innocent explanations, raising criticism over the amount of resources MI5 put in to investigating them. The 'G' shaped formation for instance turned out to be nothing more than an innocuous barley plantation.
"The amount of time and energy that MI5 put into investigating these reports is astonishing," said Dr Clarke. "They had three officers full time based in the Eastern counties looking for lights in the sky they thought were agents signalling to German aircraft 'this way to Norwich'."
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Does Humanity's Destiny Lie in Interstellar Space Travel? (Op-Ed)
Does Humanity's Destiny Lie in Interstellar Space Travel? (Op-Ed)
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An artist's interpretation of utilizing a wormhole to travel through space, Thorne kick-started a serious discussion among scientists about whether or wormhole travel is possible.
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Imagine a time when humans, having spent decades exploring the solar system through landings on Venus and Mars; passages by the largest asteroids; close-up surveys of Jupiter and its giant moons; repeated loops through Saturn's system of rings and satellites; detailed photography of Uranus, Neptune and Pluto; and even landing on a comet, finally create a coherent plan to travel through interstellar space to reach the nearest stars and their planets.
That time has almost arrived. Once NASA's Dawn spacecraft arrives at the asteroid Ceres in March of this year , and the space agency's New Horizons spacecraft flies by Pluto in July, humans will have completed the solar system exploration described above. They will have done so, of course, by creating complex and highly capable spacecraft that not only secure high-resolution images of the objects they encounter, but also roll across planetary surfaces to measure local conditions in a dozen different ways, including spectroscopic and chemical analysis of the composition and history of each object.
Will humans ever replace robotic explorers?
To many of us, the success of our automated spacecraft heralds the long-awaited moments when humans finally land on Mars, Ganymede (Jupiter's largest moon) or Titan (Saturn's largest moon), eventually to establish self-sustaining colonies that might provide a continuing opportunity to maintain our existence if our home planet were to become uninhabitable. The interplay between our logical wishes to deepen our knowledge of the solar system and our gut-level desires for personal encounters with new situations — always present though not always acknowledged — has governed humans' ever-shifting plans to explore our nearby cosmic environment for half a century.
Just about everyone welcomes new information about the solar system, but what many really — really — want is for humanity to plant its boots on new soil, as Earth-bound explorers have done for many centuries. Lonely humans in space speak directly to our emotions, but pioneering spacecraft far less so. (Even an apparent exception, such as the hero of the movie "WALL-E," connects with us through its seeming humanity, a fact that won't surprise anyone who reflects for a moment on how storytelling works.)
Some facts remain evident: Human exploration of space is dangerous and expensive, requiring the provision of food and water, recycling of wastes, significant amounts of energy to run those systems, protection against harsh radiation and a return journey (or not, depending on volunteers' propensities). In comparison, automated spacecraft have only modest energy requirements, and can last for decades or more. As time passes, this comparison progressively favors machines, since they (thanks to humans!) become ever more competent, while our bodies evolve at a much slower pace.
As the brilliant physicist Freeman Dyson explains in the new podcast available at RawScience.tv, "Instruments have gotten enormously … humans are really out of it. If you want to go to space, that's for fun, not for science … This is not understood by the people in charge [of planning for future exploration missions]."
To be sure, when we dream of the far future, we can easily envision (thanks, in part, to many science-fiction stories and films) beings that combine today's human bodies with advanced technology to produce a human-machine hybrid far more capable of long journeys and survival in strange situations than individuals are today.
Humanity's destiny in space
Dyson's argument in favor of machines counts for little among those who insist — who know — that our destiny lies in the presence of humans, not our mechanistic surrogates, in space. For many of us, this knowledge runs more deeply than argument can reach. A glance at the history of the United States' space program reminds us of the many times, during the 40-plus years since the last lunar landing, that NASA has attempted to produce a reasonable plan to send humans beyond low-Earth orbit — only to have the expense of such projects, combined with the lack of a clear focus for astronaut activity, lead to their abandonment. Because the manned lunar program basically served as a counterpunch to Soviet efforts in space, once NASA and the United States achieved their initial goal of landing on the moon, they proved unable of following a coherent plan for future space exploration by humans.
What do these ambitions tell us about the future of interstellar exploration? Even before we consider human versus automated journeys, we should note that any answers to this question begin with a number: 1 million. The stars nearest to the sun lie at distances approximately 1 million times the distance to Mars at its closest approach to Earth. This ratio implies that travel to the stars at speeds our best spacecraft are capable of will take hundreds of thousands of years, and this, in turn, implies that any interstellar exploration will require either a civilization that knows how to plan for the long haul, or the ability to make spacecraft that can travel much faster — perhaps 10,000 times more rapidly — than what we have now. (I'll save the discussion of "wormholes" like those seen in the movies "Contact" and "Interstellar " for later.)
On the fast track, or slow and steady?
Consider spacecraft that could carry astronauts through space at speeds approaching the speed of light, conferring two great advantages on the crew. Most obviously, the journey requires less time — only a few years to reach the nearest stars, and only a couple of decades to span the distances to the closest thousand stars. In addition, time slows down at near-light velocities — by a factor of 10, for example, for those who travel at 99.5 percent the speed of light. At that velocity, an astronaut who makes an interstellar journey covering 50 light years in each direction would age by only 10 years, but would return to an Earth where everyone has aged by 100 years. (Those who suspect that Einstein's theory of relativity creates a "twin paradox" — that the traveler and those who stay behind should each see time slow down by a factor of 10 — can find an excellent explanation of the apparent paradox in David Mermin's book "Space and Time in Special Relativity" (Waveland, 1989).)
But how can we hope to move through space at close to the speed of light? More than 50 years ago, Dyson — who, even then, created intriguing and controversial ideas at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey — proposed that nuclear explosions could accelerate a spacecraft to ever-higher speeds. The "Project Orion" study, directed by Ted Taylor, though largely Dyson's brainchild, envisioned that a series of nuclear explosions would strike a "pusher plate" attached to the rear of a spacecraft, eventually accelerating the spacecraft to any desired velocity.
The concept remains theoretically feasible, though one can easily see that the expense would be enormous. As Dyson recalls in the RawScience podcast, by using the power of nuclear explosions, the Orion spacecraft could provide "both fast acceleration and fast travel, which nothing else could do … In principle, the idea was good," Dyson said, but "it had one fatal flaw: The bombs are highly radioactive … As soon as you had the test-ban treaty … Orion was dead."
Even if we manage to accelerate a spacecraft to velocities close to the speed of light (10,000 times faster than our fastest space probes), any spacecraft moving at near-light velocities encounters a significant problem. The same special-relativity rules that allow a traveler to return to Earth much younger than her twin brother who stayed home also imply that collisions with space debris — even tiny dust particles — inevitably pose great dangers. [Photos: Step-by-Step Guide to NASA's EFT-1 Orion Spacecraft Test Flight ]
When the spacecraft encounters dust and pebbles, the objects' near-light velocities, relative to the craft, enormously elevate their effective masses. An impactor's increase in mass, together with the tremendous collision speeds, call for enormous amounts of shielding to protect anyone inside the spacecraft. Hence, any plans to travel through the Milky Way at near-light speeds must embrace not only a truly massive propulsion system, but also enough shielding to protect the humans inside the craft.
Thinking in centuries
Nevertheless, Dyson's Orion concept remains, in many ways, the gold standard for visions of interstellar travel. In the recent podcast, Dyson noted that the name "Orion" has been passed on to NASA's most recent spacecraft design not for an interstellar vehicle, but for a far more modest craft to take astronauts to other worlds in the solar system. Dyson also identified the most basic requirement for interstellar spaceflight: a society capable of long-term planning and execution. "If you want to have a program for moving out into the universe, you have to think in centuries, not in decades."
That necessity for a long-term vision poses a serious barrier to interstellar journeys in a society that has great difficulty planning for even the next five years.
If we are prepared to think in centuries, as Dyson recommends, we should ask the key technological question: What prospects exist for interstellar space travel at comparatively low velocities? In the decades since this question first seriously arose, theorists have provided plenty of answers, which build on the success of our current interplanetary space probes. If you want to probe deeply into them, the coordinated websites of the Tau Zero Foundation and Centauri Dreams offer useful information on this topic. And if you want to examine a representative plan for interstellar travel, I recommend the PowerPoint presentation created by Steve Kilston, an astronomer who spent much of his career at Ball Aerospace (and with whom I have been friends since our undergraduate days). Kilston's "Plausible Path to the Stars" envisions the creation — in approximately 500 years — of a cylindrical spaceship that will carry a million inhabitants, will rotate in order to simulate Earth's gravity, will travel at 0.2 percent of the speed of light, and could reach the few dozen nearest stars in 10,000 years' time.
In other words, Kilston's "Plausible Path," like any other low-velocity journey, requires that generations upon generations of spacefarers pass their entire lives short of their goal. Today, this plan would attract few volunteers. But if human society came to feel sure of its long-term viability, so that our time horizon stretched beyond the current limits of (at most) our grandchildren's lifetimes, the situation would become quite different. Perhaps the wisest aspect of Kilston's plan lies in its final prelaunch phase: a 100-year cruise through the solar system to demonstrate the full feasibility of the spacecraft and the willingness of its crew to pass their lives in space.
Thus, a practical, technologically reasonable plan to explore our cosmic environment rests simply upon achieving a society in which a 100-year journey, and a few thousand years of travel time, seem both logical and desirable. To see how far we now stand from this goal, we may merely compare a film based on Kilston's "Plausible Path" with a movie like "Avatar" or "Interstellar." In today's world, almost no one is interested in moving from a situation in which months of spacecraft travel is far too long to one that tolerates multi-thousand-year journeys. Instead, we must hope for a better tomorrow.
The wormhole option
If we don't want to wait, what about taking the "Interstellar" route and using a wormhole to pass near-instantaneously from here to there? Kip Thorne, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology who's an expert on the subject — and whose screenplay inspired "Interstellar" — has written a book to accompany the film: "The Science of Interstellar" (W.W. Norton and Company, 2014). In the book, Thorne demonstrates that humans cannot rule out wormhole travel, but there is no guarantee that this method actually works, or that it could allow safe conduct through the voids of space.
Physicists have recently suggested that the Milky Way could contain — or even be! — a giant wormhole. On the other hand, an argument against wormhole travel, or at least against its easy operation, lies in the fact that no creatures of a more advanced civilization appear to be popping out of wormholes in our solar system. A similar argument can be made against time travel, at least in the backward direction, since we have yet to encounter beings from the future who have decided to visit our present.
To be frank, concepts of interstellar travel have progressed only modestly since Dyson envisioned the Orion project decades ago. Yes, layers of refinement have been added: "Slow" versus "fast" spaceflight has been debated and scored, experience has now given some indications of how well humans can survive long periods in space, and theoretical physics has provided some tantalizing possibilities that might make such journeys much easier than they now appear. But the big picture has not changed: First, we must figure out how to live successfully for the long term on Earth, and then we can go to the stars.
Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Space.com.
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 74 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.